Russia Toying with the Idea of Banning Same-Sex Emojis

Russia may be planning to ban emojis presumed gay or promoting same-sex causes since they go against a law passed in 2013 that is against “gay propaganda”. Facebook rolled out gay pride emojis for the first time back in 2013 but updated them sometime this year along with other 28 new emojis as shown below after the United States Supreme Court ruling that finally declared legal same-sex relationships in all states:

Mikhail Marchenko, a Russian Senator, argued in an appeal to the country’s Federal Service For Supervision of Communication, Information Technology and Mass Media, that the emojis are still seen by users of the social media platform the world over despite being against Russia’s laws and traditions.

An “expert opinion” on the matter from a Putin-party youth group has been requested and will likely inform the decision that will eventually be arrived at regarding the issue.

The emojis are not just found on Facebook alone. Apple for instance released such emojis back in 2012 and other new ones this year on its mobile platform, iOS while on Android, they were added as per the Unicode standard.

Russia has some form of stringent internet censorship where websites containing child pornography, drug abuse or extremist content are blacklisted by the government. However, this move to ban what it regards as same-sex emojis, may draw a lot of criticism.